Babycakes, Maybecakes

I have rarely been as disappointed in a cookbook as I was by Babycakes (which has the subtitle "Vegan, Gluten-Free, and (Mostly) Sugar-Free Recipes from New York's Most Talked-About Bakery)".

Let's start with what I did like about the book, though.

1) It is BEAUTIFULLY photographed. Before I'd looked through it first - and I really should have, but more on that later - I handed Babycakes to The Baby and told her cheerfully that I could make her anything out of it, and she very cheerfully looked through it. Most books aimed at people with severe allergies or food intolerance's are not so beautifully photographed, and it was a pleasure to see it.

2) Erin McKenna has a nice, friendly writing style, and does a good job of explaining baking basics to novices. This sounds like a small thing but it is NOT - I have many baking books that are as dry as dust, books where the author does not explain even complicated instructions.


3) The gingerbread that I made - with some adaptations, which I'll explain later - and that I am currently eating is VERY good. I am sure many of the other recipes would be equally good, too.

Let's look at the book's claims now, shall we?

Vegan
It IS a vegan cookbook, and if that mattered to me, I would be very cheerful. Of course, the book makes a lot of claims that the things in it are healthy - which would be irresistible for many people I know: healthy frosted cupcakes? SIGN ME UP.

Just taking the eggs and dairy out of a cupcake does not make it healthy (unless you are allergic to eggs and dairy and then BY ALL MEANS) and using - excuse me while I vomit into my garbage can just thinking about it - "garbanzo-fava bean flour" in your cupcake does not make it virtuous. Taking the eggs and dairy and wheat out of a cupcake is a good thing if you are allergic to eggs and dairy and wheat, but it is does not magically transform a cupcake into a slice of healthy bread or something. The cupcake recipe, for example, has 1 CUP of coconut oil in it, and 1 1/2 cups of "agave nectar" or, as my husband calls it, "really expensive corn syrup."

The book claims that coconut oil "stores in your body as energy and not fat, and supports the proper function of the thyroid.... it's a bit pricey, but so are the heart attacks it helps prevent." The health claims being made for coconut oil are not universally held to be true - Dr. Weill, for example, wrote bluntly on his website that he does not recommend using coconut oil.

The author DOES suggest other substitutions for coconut oil, so I wouldn't let that deter me if I was interested in the book. The only recipes where coconut oil seems to be essential are the lush-looking frosting recipes, which depend upon coconut oil's thickening qualities. Or you could use coconut oil. Your call.

Gluten-Free
Sigh.

A fourth of the recipes in this slim book - there are only 48 recipes, I believe (not counting a handful of beverage recipes) - are NOT gluten-free. They use spelt, which while WHEAT-free, contains gluten.

There IS an explanation on how spelt is wheat-free, not gluten-free, but THE COVER STILL SAYS "GLUTEN-FREE" right on it. If I wrote a book called "Beck's Completely Vegetarian Book" and 1/4 of the recipes had BACON, wouldn't you be ticked off?

So, many of the recipes that my little tiny child with celiac disease happily wrote her name beside are completely off-limits to her. If you have a child on a restricted diet, you likely know how that made me feel.

(Mostly) Sugar-Free
What?

Every recipe - all of them, with no substitutions offered - uses "agave nectar", which is widely touted in health food-y circles as being a miracle food. The claims being made for it are EXTREMELY controversial, and it is STILL sugar. It is AS high in calories, is no more "natural" then corn syrup (and many people believe as bad for you as corn syrup, too), not any safer for diabetics and did I mention EXTREMELY expensive? My little wee bottle cost me $12 and was enough for ONE batch of cupcakes.

Other liquid sweeteners - honey, molasses, maple syrup or corn syrup - might be able to sub in for agave nectar in some of the recipes, although agave nectar is so sweet that without it, many of the recipes would NOT turn out. I was quite happy with the pumpkin gingerbread that I made last night, using honey instead of agave nectar, but it would not work as a substitution in cupcakes, for example.

So the book is not "Sugar-Free." It is not even "(Mostly) Sugar-Free."

Most Talked-About

By famous people.

Yes, nothing impresses me more than having Natalie Portman tell me that these recipes "all tasted better than anything made with butter, cream, and eggs", than Mary-Louise Parker telling me how good for me these recipes are, that Zooey Deschanel is so happy to finally have safe snacks, that Pamela Anderson loves them because they are "less chubby desserts" and ON and ON. Yes, we GET it. You have famous friends.

Celebrity butt-kissing is one of my big pet peeves, in case you've just started reading me today or something. Natalie Portman is not magically an expert on baked goods just because she's talented and pretty. Pamela Anderson is not the person to ask about the calorie content of baked goods (and the calorie content would still be quite high from my guess, although the book provides no nutritional information). Mary-Louise Parker does not have an additional degree in nutrition as well as being on television.

So how were the recipes?
I've tried a handful of recipes from the book - the vanilla cupcakes, which I made as directed, the cornbread, which I adapted to be gluten-free and using honey as a sweetener, and the pumpkin gingerbread, which I also made with honey.

The vanilla cupcakes were a dud. The taste of the gluten-free flours was overwhelming, and everyone in the house had a stomach ache after eating ONE unfrosted cupcake.

The cornbread was more of a success - lighter than most gf cornbreads I've made.

And the pumpkin gingerbread was DELICIOUS. I frosted it - not being a vegan - with a cream cheese frosting, which was perfect, but if you are a vegan, a plain vanilla - or lemon!- frosting would set it off nicely, too.

So on its own terms, it is not a bad cookbook. The recipes perform reasonably well - although I am not going to make the cupcakes again - and if you or your child have dairy, egg or wheat issues, this might work well for your family. I find the kind of miracle food claims that books like this make worrisome, however, and I dislike having bony celebrities in my cookbooks telling me that a batch of not-anything-special cupcakes that cost $25 to make - in the middle of a severe recession! - are in some way morally or nutritionally superior to another batch of cupcakes.

I did like the author's calm writing, and the recipes looked beautiful. I'd be interested to see future gluten-free books from her, books that don't rely on such controversial, expensive ingredients.